Singles made the difference

In February of 2002, we had a call from John Wright, coach of the Indian cricket team.

He had, he said, seen a column we had done on Rediff that spoke of how the Indians weren't taking enough singles and how this was costing the team especially in close games.

He wanted to discuss this in some depth; a day later, he came over to our office and spent a good part of the day getting us to put together, on discs, a series of analytical pieces on this and other subjects which he wanted to present to the team at the next meeting.

(The dossiers put together were given to Wright and not duplicated on the net; we did however put together three on somewhat similar, if less elaborate, lines on the site for general reading – see links below this article).

Some time later, I asked John how that had gone; the coach told us that in the meeting, this facet had been emphasized, and the team was being pushed into improving the quotient of singles to dot balls.

The first time we saw the results of that meeting was in the one-day tri-series in England later that year featuring India and Sri Lanka apart from the hosts. One game, at Chester le Street, stands out in memory as one of the earliest occasions when the Indians focused on singles, with spectacular results.

The first half of today's game against Zimbabwe provided yet another instance of how invaluable singles can be in constructing a big innings. Two days earlier, VVS Laxman had scored a superb 103 off 113. Today, Rahul Dravid played 106 deliveries, and got just 84.

Singles made the difference. Laxman had 53 singles to 43 dot balls; Dravid today had 50 singles to 42 dot balls. Both batsmen did well, to register more singles than dot balls, which is becoming a bit of an article of faith for the Indian team of late. But today, Dravid seemed a tired man – not that you can blame him much, given the marathon batting performances he has produced on this tour thus far. But the difference showed, from his performance of two days ago when he registered 74 off 64 deliveries with just 14 dot balls, a superb statistic, against 35 singles.

There were two other interesting aspects to the Indian innings today. The first relates to the resilience the team showed, in coming back from 3/74, when Laxman was out, to a closing score of 255/6. Yuvraj Singh, who has of late not got much of an opportunity to strut his stuff, played a beautifully calibrated knock to provide the impetus while Dravid focused on ensuring against a collapse.

There's been some concern expressed both in emails and on Panix Station about Yuvraj's form and utility to the side – this knock, on the first occasion he got a few overs to work with, should provide the answer, especially when coupled with the electricity he brings to the field.

The other aspect was that for the first time, we got a fair look at Rohan Gavaskar. Coming in to bat in the 41st over is not exactly a platform to show your skills, but Gavaskar played a fair hand of 22 at a run a ball and, in the process, looked good enough to negate the comments being made that he owes his place in the side to some presumed promise BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya made to Sunil Gavaskar.

Two shots were interesting; the first was when he shimmied a little to leg to clear some room, and smacked Douglas Hondo for a lovely six over mid-off. In the 49th over, he then finessed a four down to third man – staying in his crease, he let a Heath Streak delivery angle across him, then opened his bat face out in a controlled glide fine to the third man fence. In between, he looked composed, took his singles, showed good judgment in his calling and responses – altogether, a fair outing, and just enough of a teaser to make you curious to see how he goes with a bit more overs to work with.

Read Also: 

http://us.rediff.com/cricket/2002/feb/12column.htm -- Singles

http://us.rediff.com/cricket/2002/feb/12colum1.htm -- Inconsistency

http://us.rediff.com/cricket/2002/feb/12colum2.htm -- Singles, the sequel